DE 41 35 405 A1 describes a starter device for manually starting an internal combustion engine that essentially consists of a rope spool that is actuated by means of a pull rope and able to set a crankshaft in rotation by means of a locking gear. Due to the constructive design of the internal combustion engine, the crankshaft generally has a periodically changing torque characteristic during its rotational movement, wherein this torque characteristic depends on whether the internal combustion is realized in the form of a two-stroke engine or a four-stroke engine. A high torque is required during the compression phase of the internal combustion engine while the rotational movement of the crankshaft may even lead the rotational movement of the starter device in the expansion phase. This highly periodic torque demand of the internal combustion engine to be started generates a force in the pull rope that increases and decreases in a correspondingly periodic fashion and needs to be overcome by the user who perceives this force as an abrupt load. For example, in a single-cylinder two-stroke cut-off saw with a displacement of 73 cm.sup.3, a rope force with a peak value of 550 N can be generated. This represents a substantial load to be overcome by the user. It has been proposed to realize a coupling drum and a carrier in the locking mechanism as independent components, between which an elastically deformable tappet is arranged in order to absorb the peak forces of the reaction torque. However, a very high force may also be required for setting the starter device in rotation at the beginning of the starting process depending on the piston position of the internal combustion engine. Consequently, an elastically deformable tappet that is realized, for example, in the form of a coil spring cannot substantially smooth out the periodic pull rope force. Furthermore, the rope spool is directly coupled to the crankshaft rotationally such that the rope spool needs to have the same speed as the crankshaft during the starting process. Even the slight difference in speed made possible by the elastically deformable tappet results in a slight deviation between the speed of the crankshaft and the speed of the rope spool.
DE 102 55 838 A1 describes another starter device for an internal combustion engine that may selectively feature an electric starter, a reversing starter or a combination of an electric starter and a reversing starter that can be arbitrarily interchanged. In this starter device, the electric motor can be connected to the crankshaft of the internal combustion engine by means of a gear, wherein the gear disclosed in this publication has a fixed step-up or step-down ratio between the reversing starter or electric starter and the crankshaft of the internal combustion engine. The gear therefore also directly transmits the periodically changing torque demand of the internal combustion engine to the pull rope operated by the user.